Sancho Panza Meets Dulcinea
by shywr1ter
Summary: CHALLENGE RESPONSE: How does Bling learn about Manticore and the fact Max is an X5? S1, midPilot. way too early for moosh!


**_CHALLENGE RESPONSE: _discussions in the "Questions" and eventually, "Challenges" topics of FFN's Dark Angel forum, Blah Blah Woof Woof, included the following from Mari83: "Is it ever mentioned how Bling learns about Manticore and - more important - that Max is an X5?...So, if it isn't mentioned in the series, maybe this could be an interesting short fic: How does somebody like Bling (who probably hasn't the vast knowledge of rumours Logan has from the Eyes Only network) react to the existence of transgenics and to the fact he knows one?**

_**Maria656 wrote the first response to this challenge, then dared me to try one, too. I figured a part of my**** challenge was to do a completely different take on the issue. Mine may be a less direct a response ... but at least it IS different!**_

**And a very big thanks to Reilyn who saved me from shame with a quick-beta while FFN was sick! I blew it and she caught it--with luck, all before FFN got better! **_**  
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**Sancho Panza Meets Dulcinea**

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_The fuller back-story for Bling and Eyes Only can be found in an earlier fic, **Still Waters**. In that one, I wrote Bling as a former Navy SEAL who served with Logan's "muscle" from the Pilot, Peter. It was Peter who encouraged Bling to move to Seattle originally, and had enlisted him for some Eyes Only work prior to the events that left Peter dead and Logan injured. Peter and Bling were like brothers, and Peter had left instructions for Bling if he was ever compromised, with additional instructions if Logan were involved, too. It was through those instructions that Bling learned Logan was Eyes Only, and through those instructions that Bling had been directed to dismantle the Informant Net. _

_He doesn't, ultimately, but within the first 72 hours of Logan's injury and Peter's death, Bling goes to the Penthouse to erase Eyes Only, as directed by Peter and Logan in their instructions. (However, he decides to merely secure the information and lock down anything that could compromise Eyes Only or the 'Net.) This story picks up as he's doing so..._

**I. Bling**

Bling sighed, rubbing his large hands over his face. In all this, at least he felt a small comfort that the months – no, years – of work represented in the computer would not be lost. He'd gone over it a dozen different ways and he was confident that the newly placed hard drive – who knew he'd pull off a switch like that, even with the detailed instructions Cale had provided – appeared as if it was the original, scrubbed clean. The one he had removed and had immediately taken to his car, shoving it up into the springs of his seat, was locked down with an encrypted, password sensitive series of filters that could take hours for even the best to wade through.

He knew that there was a small window of danger here – someone taking his ride, someone getting to him for the information, something happening to him before he could provide the location and passwords to another for safekeeping, for when Cale was ready to get things back. But he just couldn't destroy all the work ... he was disobeying a clear directive that his gut wouldn't let him obey. He just hoped he was doing the right thing...

He'd half-way thought of doing this on his way over, even when his mission had been to take out the system. But once he was in ... once he saw the vastness of the information Cale had at his fingertips, the hours of painstaking research and legwork represented there, he knew he couldn't destroy it. Not the 'Net... not the amazing information Cale had been developing...

He still felt a prickle of guilt that he'd been so drawn in by what he'd seen that he started reading through some of the recently viewed files. He hadn't been invited to wade through them, only to get rid of them. But what he found was amazing both in its breadth and detail. He found files on the mayor and the police, on the Board of the hospital where he worked, and on the border patrol. He found data covering the water supply, the black market, and the local pharmaceutical network. Minutes turned into hours, far too long for him to be there, as he read about a shadow government in Seattle skimming off supplies and monies for those in charge, and government experiments on children, producing a team of super-soldiers who could out-run, out-think, out-fight and out-last any other human assets on the planet...

Dropping his hands, Bling allowed himself another moment to consider what he'd done, to make sure he'd taken care of any loose ends. It had been thirty six hours since he'd last slept and despite the shower he'd grabbed at the hospital and the coffee he'd bolted both before and after, he was starting to feel the effects both of his lack of sleep, and the enormity of what the ambush had done – to Peter... to Cale... and the knowledge it brought him. Cale _was_ Eyes Only; if the information left to him in safety deposit boxes hadn't convinced him, then trolling through the man's computer surely did. The stuff of urban legend, much of it ... but Cale appeared to do the research, faithfully following up on the allegations and rumor threads given him. Much of it, of course, was beyond Bling's experience, but the areas he did know – the medical issues, the genetic manipulation, even the government cover-ups – those were topics that Bling knew quite well. And what Cale had here was a goldmine of information, painstakingly developed. He couldn't allow this to be lost...

Knowing his thoughts weren't as crisp or as thorough as they might have been, he sat back to allow himself another mental walk-though to determine if there was anything else he might do while he was there, just to be of some help. The refrigerator had been all but bare, but still, Bling had cleaned out any of the items that might go bad in the many weeks ahead that its owner would be away. He'd gone through the rest of the place, not seeing anything like fish or a pet that would suffer Cale's absence...

_...of course, someone could make a killing if they decided to rob the place_, Bling mused. He wondered if it would be better or worse to let the security guard in the building know that the Penthouse would be unoccupied for a few months...

...Bling's thoughts were interrupted by a soft sound, then another, both from, it seemed, overhead. He got to his feet silently, and went out to the entry, looking up toward the skylight. It was dark, of course, the night sky making the panels black ... but there was something ... Memories of Peter's words about a recent break in came readily now, and Bling moved back down further into the entryway, back against the wall, into the shadows. Air currents shifted slightly, a soft 'thwap' and a softer 'whoosh' was heard. From around the corner in the entry, Bling could barely hear movement into the Penthouse...

**II. Max**

As she had several evenings before, Max flew from an adjoining building to his, muttering to herself and irritated that she was having to do this a third time...

_Face it, Max, you let them get to you. First the chump, getting himself shot, then the woman and her kid, here, waiting for him to rescue them ... all that and you leave this jerk with information that Lydecker would just love to score..._

She landed quietly on the roof of his building, only briefly acknowledging to herself that she probably _could_ have used the fire stairs if not the elevator, but that the glider-entry she'd been using was a whole lot more fun, and continued her mental lecture...

_If he's got all the dope that he says he does, he's a risk to all the kids, and he seems to know it all about the project and the escape ... even the seizures ... No way did he think I was the only one who made it; it was just a coincidence that I was the one dropping in on him. _She grimaced, mentally kicking herself. _ But you were the one that confirmed it all for him, weren't you, Max, just couldn't leave your hands off the shiny objects ... With that computer set-up, no way does he not have files and files of stuff tucked away on all of us ... wonder if that tech said anything about us individually, or if it was just about the project and the escape? Even if he didn't, Cale figured things out in a hurry ... and if he has anything in there about tryptophan, that would tell Lydecker something about me even **he** doesn't know..._

_Whack job,_ she continued as she quietly lifted the skylight yet again. _I don't care if he's out to save the whole damn planet, I don't trust him. **No** one is worth trusting 'til you learn what's in it for him..._

Max dropped her rope down into the open glass panel, looping the end around the sturdy framework of the skylight opening. She slid down the rope into the hushed Penthouse, still nettled that she hadn't taken care of all this the last time she'd been there, despite the other things going on at the time. Immediately upon landing in the hall, however, Max froze.

_...someone else is here..._

Her 'radar' was pinging wildly – either still there or gone only minutes, there was the bare scent of soap in the air – a recent shower, soap like they have at a gym or... what? _What other public showers are around?_ she asked herself as she flattened herself against the wall to peer further into the place. A few steps toward the computer room made the scent stronger there but dissipating, freed from its source. So the clean-freak had been after the computer too, then, she figured ... turning back to the entry, she padded silently through to the other direction and skimmed along the wall, finding the soft scent meeting her from the other side...

She crouched, peering around the corner into the entry, to see a man standing flattened back against the wall, close along a display pedestal and sculpture there in an area clearly more shadowed than the rest of the entry. With a smirk, Max saw his hands were empty and, his jacket shed, the only weapon he carried was his impressive physique, maybe daunting for others but for her, just a fast flash of eye-candy. She backed away from the entry, not needing him to know how easily she could see him, and gave this some thought. He looked pretty clean cut to be a looter, and was dressed more like someone who strolled in, rather than breaking in. All that, and because he was built like the last guy she took on here, he might be another employee. Either way, she wouldn't let him slow her down ... but he apparently knew she was there and would have to be dealt with, too.

From the hall, she called out, "hey, you – how 'bout a truce? You know I'm here, I know you're here. Rich boy has plenty to go around... why not let a working girl have a chance, too, huh?"

**III. Sidekicks Meet**

Max stood waiting and, as she heard the man finally move toward her voice, she too took a step toward the entry. _Maybe not all that brave; he's got to figure he's a Big Bad and I'm female, so most likely smaller than he is,_ Max mused. _But then again, he doesn't know if I'm carrying or not. Not bad..._ she conceded in private admiration for her adversary.

Bling stepped out of the shadows, hands away from his sides so there would be no question of his having a weapon. As he stepped over toward the voice, a petite, slim form appeared from around the corner. He blinked. "You're the girl..." He confirmed, aloud, unthinking, as he looked her over in the soft light, assessing. Street, for sure; mixed ethnicity, maybe – family might have been street even before the Pulse. A common thief? Not too common to drop in from a skylight this high above the city... definitely not common to drop his enormous, tough, well trained friend, and probably not 110 pounds soaking wet... "Peter mentioned you."

"The big guy with him, here?" At his nod, Max smirked, "Big guys fall harder than most; he probably did mention me." Max was making her own assessment, and putting the word out to Bling that she wasn't going to let this be a debate. But what she saw in response surprised her: the man before her had tried to hide his reaction, but the death of his friend, the injury to Logan ... the news he'd learned over the past few hours... the reminder of it all was even harder to take now, exhausted as he was. So maybe he was another employee, one, apparently, with the same do-gooder blood as his boss. "I saw the tape." Max conceded, "Not good." She paused. "It looked like Peter didn't get up, this time."

Bling swallowed, hard, and forced an even tone. "No, he didn't."

"And your boss?" she tried. "He was still kickin' on the video..."

Bling grimaced at the irony. "Yeah, well ... he'll be out of commission for a while."

She nodded, pursing her lips, looking around. "And you're locking up, while he's away?"

"Something like that." Bling narrowed his eyes, noting that she affected a demeanor of perfect calm, as if they'd met on the street, as if it was common as rain in Seattle for two interlopers to meet in an expensive Penthouse, high over the city, after she'd dropped in through the skylight ... the calm was an act for the undercurrent _thrumming_ below the surface that he could see, common to so many westerners trained in eastern techniques ... cover with calm, but not quite _affect_ the calm ... She was here with a purpose, and it was important to her. He pressed, "So why are _you_ here? To clean him out while he's laid up in ICU?"

Her response was quick and angry. "What if I was? Rich boy wouldn't miss anything; he probably has three of everything in here..."

Inexplicably, the response irritated him – probably his fatigue, he'd think, later – and he snorted, "Go on, take what you want; he'd probably give it to you, if you'd ask him." Somewhere deep in his mind, Bling knew it wasn't why she was there, but events were having their effect on his usual equanimity, and his worry for – and new-found amazement with – Logan Cale made his words into an attack on the unfairness of it all. "The man isn't gonna stay rich for long, not the way he hands out his money and possessions, like it's nothing ... like _he's_ nothing..." In his exhaustion, Bling suddenly noted the thought: a death wish? It might explain a lot ... something critical to remember, for Cale's hospital stay ... for his recovery, his therapy, his success or failure, his willingness to try...

The man's words, unexpected, caused Max only a moment of pain before a tougher shell came over her, hiding the hurt that she felt, inexplicably, at his words. "For your information I wasn't here to steal anything of _his _... he has something of mine and I want it back."

Bling shook his head, depleted now, skeptical. "Yeah, right..."

"He does! It's..." She paused, "I think he has some information in his computer and it's not for public consumption, ya know, so if I can just..." She started to walk around him, toward the computer room.

He moved with her, standing now between her and her goal. "No."

"Look, if the last guy who took me on here mentioned me, it's probably because I sent him to lullaby land for a while." Max shifted, broadening her stance, putting her fists on her hips, looking him dead in the eye. "I can do the same for you..."

Bling didn't move, but shrugged, suddenly relaxing. "It's too late anyway; I've knocked it all off-line and have erased all the files," he lied. "Whatever it was, it's gone, anyway."

She looked at him, long moments, assessing him. He was good, he looked as if he was telling the truth ... but the man was too emotionally invested in all this. Trained, maybe, but he was clearly exhausted and not in any shape to pull the plug on something as big as this operation must be. Max narrowed her eyes and dared, "I don't believe you."

He merely shrugged.

So maybe she was wrong, and he _had_ tossed the info ... or if he hadn't, he'd locked it up or hidden it well enough that he believed she couldn't get to it ... Max thought, quickly. This guy was clearly brighter than the last muscle Cale had with him, even if he was built much like the last one. He was watching her, closely, as if he already had the 411 on her – and it made her nervous. Suppose Cale had already blabbed her secrets to this one as well as the other? It wasn't like Cale was the strong, silent type; hell, with the TV show, he probably liked the sound of his own voice.

She hesitated, not sure how to play it. Clearly she could take the guy out, but then what? Who knew what he had done to the system; even if it wasn't all erased it might be far more locked down than it had been when she "borrowed" it the night before, to get the woman and kid out of danger. Maybe it was time for a different sort of sparring...

"Look, I don't know what your dealio is in all this; I assume you're just another guy working for him. And I have no interest in any of his super secret, 'big brother' action once I get my stuff back. But maybe you need to know that he owes me – I took care of the kid and the woman, just like he asked, once I saw _he_ wasn't going to get it done. And I even threw in Sonrisa, as a sweetener. If he's such a stand up guy – I'd say he has no right to keep what's mine."

And suddenly the light in Bling's eyes shifted; with her words, everything tumbled into place, and he knew he was in bad shape that he hadn't seen this, earlier: he suddenly knew exactly what information she sought ... and why she was able to do all that Peter had described. The fantastical, science-fiction files and notes and documents Bling had seen in Logan's files, protected carefully by an encoded system that would have been nearly impossible to crack without the key he'd been given, were not merely some crackpot's urban legend that Cale was investigating, but a living, breathing woman before him, looking him over and anxious that her secrets would be spilled...

He pulled back a bit, cautious now. "You're probably right..." he temporized, "and I'll bet he'd agree with you. But I can't be of much help and he's not regained consciousness since he came out of surgery, not really. In a few days he can tell us where..."

"'Where' ... in the computer files that you wiped clean?" She glowered now, frustrated in her certainty that he was lying, and her knowledge that strong-arming him would not get her what she needed.

"No ... where anything else might be." He watched her warily, thinking of what he read, imagining her as the documents said she was: a product of genetic engineering, mixed up as a batch of the best human DNA available and the best parts of other species, to boot... _Impossible_, according to his own pre-med courses and anything he'd ever learned in his not-so-shabby medical training since. _Any more impossible than a girl her size dropping Peter like she had? So much for 'street,'_ Bling allowed, _and no way would anyone take her at face value for a government project..._

"I can't wait that long," she started to push by him, and Bling roused to say,

"Yes... you can. Please," he looked to her, suddenly understanding – really understanding – her insistence, and her fears. "I promise you, Logan Cale has a lot of secrets to hide, and if yours are in with the others, they're safe with him – and safe, for now. I know you might have things to keep private, but believe me, he does, too, and many more times over..."

Max wavered. Something had changed in the man, and while it made her more uncomfortable on the one hand ... she felt like he was now being up front with her. He was going on about Cale's secrets – did he know Superman's secret identity, too? No matter what, secrets were inviolate with her, given what she had carried all her life, and she didn't want to spill Cale's if they weren't already spilled. Still ... if they were getting down to her versus him, she knew who she had to protect... "If you're talking about Clark Kent being Superman, I'm way ahead of you, there..." Max hoped it would make sense only if he knew...

"Then you understand that things will be safe..."

So he did. She shrugged back toward the computer room and said, "he might have gotten some things -- reports or something-- that he has in his paper files. If he does, I'd like to take with them with me. My stuff, only."

"If I can come watch what you take..."

"Look, it's only 'cos I feel sorry for all of you that you're not out cold already," she complained.

"_Max_..." Bling tried, and, seeing the surprise there, went on more softly, "that's your name, isn't it? Max?"

She wavered again, assessing. "Might be. What about yours?" She dared.

"BL. Or... Peter, and Logan... call me Bling."

Incongruously, an eyebrow raised as Max smirked, " Oh, they _do_? They know something that the rest of Seattle doesn't?" At his own twist of a smile in reply, Max relaxed a little more as she saw him do the same.

"You let me watch, I'll show you the files I know to find. I'll even unlock the cabinets for you, although I suspect it wouldn't be necessary." He paused, then offered, softly. "He never said anything to me and I believe, said nothing to Peter. But I saw the files, Max, before I destroyed things. I saw the information he had, only because I had to have all the pass codes to do what I had to do. I saw what they did to you – I saw the files Logan had on Project Manticore. I'm sorry..." He watched the beautiful face fight to remain stoical, unmoving, at his words. "I would bet anything I have that he didn't let anyone know. It wouldn't be like him to tip anything in his files, short of a broadcast." He owed her that much; it would be what Logan would want him to do, to be honest about what he'd found. "You can do what you gotta do – to me, to the files – but no one here will ever pass on the information Logan has. You have my word on it, for what that's worth."

Max studied him, long, and finally chewed her lip momentarily. First Cale, now this one... this couldn't be good. "You know the project's purpose?" He nodded. "And what I can do – what I did, to your friend, what I could have done?" Again, he nodded. She considered, then murmured, "I suppose it means something, your admitting you know it all, with just us here – knowing I could insure the information didn't go any further, and no one would ever know..." She had to hand it to him, his only response was a slight shrug of concession. "Oh, what the hell," she gave in, for the moment. There was nothing else _to_ do, after all. "You're going to be sure he gets through this bitch?"

He sighed, tiredly. "More than you'd probably guess. Other than what I've done for Eyes Only, over the past couple years ... I'm a physical therapist. I've asked to be assigned to him, and I'm going to do everything in my power to get him through and back here, where he belongs."

"Physical therapist?" She frowned, looking surprised. "Then ... he really _was_ hurt..."

"Yeah, Max, he was..." Even in his weariness and his worry, Bling saw the look of concern that replaced the look he'd seen in her eyes moments before, as her thoughts shifted from herself to his patient. With the small dose of hope he felt with its appearance, he tipped his head toward the computer room and turned to walk that way. "C'mon, let's find your files... and I'll fill you in on what happened..."

Max nodded and went on past the man, allowing him to follow her from behind, no fear that he'd even try something to overpower her. _Damn that Bast..._ she let herself muse as she watched him unlocking Cale's file cabinet. _What the hell has she gotten me into...?_

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